Stumps and Stories: From Construction Sites to Cricket Fields
Look around you for a moment. This fancy new auditorium. The glass classrooms you walked in and out of today. The cafeteria you probably sat at during lunch, filled with comfy booths and couches. Once upon a time, our cafeteria was two floors of hard plastic benches. Once upon a time, this was a soccer pitch.
These brand new spaces were major upgrades, but they didn’t appear overnight. While many of us put up our feet during summer and winter breaks, these facilities were constructed brick by brick by migrant workers whose names we don’t know, whose stories we rarely care to ask about. We use the spaces they built every day, but how often do we see the people behind them?
The idea of seeing and hearing people is the basis for service clubs at SAS. Service is often seen as the college-resume filler focused on actions: raising money, gaining service hours, and going on in-person volunteering trips. And while it can involve all of these things, at its core, it is very much about the people: both the people we serve and the people doing the service.
That’s what the Stumps and Stories initiative was built around. A couple of friends and I from the High School Cricket Club organized an annual cricket carnival on campus to honor the migrant workers who helped build our new elementary school. In the case of this special event, there was no money to be raised or service in the traditional sense. Just conversations around shared passions.
At first, it was kind of awkward. We didn’t really know what to expect. We weren’t sure how good they were going to be. We weren’t really sure what to say. Then we stepped onto the stadium field, began our first game, and we got smacked out there. They played hard. You could tell this mini-tournament meant a lot to them. We even gave one of the guys the nickname “Thala”, a nickname given to the famous cricketer M.S. Dhoni because of the huge sixes he was hitting and his bright yellow pants that bore a resemblance to Dhoni’s team jersey.
After about 30 mins, our game was over, we shook hands, and made our way back to the bleachers. That’s when the conversations really started. First, it was talking about the game we just played and how impressively they played. Then it was simple questions like, “How long have you been playing cricket?” and “Who’s your favorite player?” Slowly over some rice, paneer, and cold mango lassi, the distance between us disappeared.
As we came to learn more about them, I realized something. It’s easy to think about migrant workers in terms of what they do: they build our buildings, help with repairs when needed, and keep our campus running smoothly. But when you peel back the layers and uncover their stories, they were very much like me. We’re both cricket fans who’ve played this sport our whole lives. We share the same passion and love for the sport. We’re a lot more alike than I thought.
The day of matches continued, we played the finals, and we gathered in the bleachers for our prize giving and closing ceremony. When we announced each person’s name, they would run excitedly up the stairs to meet us at the top, and their friends would cheer loudly for them. The winners shook my hand, smiled, and said thank you. Before sending them off, we gave a small speech thanking them for their hard work in constructing the new elementary school building, and a smile grew on all of their faces. Playing their favorite sport in front of the building they worked tirelessly to make was an amazing experience for all of us, but mostly it was the power of recognition that made their day special. Listening to their stories and showing genuine interest carried more weight than I expected.
As a whole, this experience made me rethink what it means to do service at SAS. I realized it isn’t about grand gestures. It isn’t about trying to help some niche group of people so that it comes off as impressive on your college app. Nor is it about trying to make your club the biggest service club, like a ranking. I realized that it’s about finding the people just outside our lives, the people who’ve had an impact on us, and choosing to bring their lives into focus. Hear their stories, learn about them as the people that they are, and recognize the impact that their actions and presence have on you and society, and thank them for it. Doing service events like this have taught me so much about gratitude and respect, and have brought this SAS community so much closer.
Now, every time I walk into this auditorium, or sit in the cafeteria, or pass a construction fence on campus, I think differently. I don’t just see a finished building or construction in progress. I see the people who made it possible. Service can begin with something as simple as seeing someone, and choosing not to look away.